Alphabet kicked off Magnificent 7 results with what looked like a solid beat.

The company grew the top-line by 13.7% during Q2, a meaningful acceleration versus the prior two quarters’ annual growth rate and the seventh straight double-digit YoY gain. $96.4 billion in revenue easily topped the $94 billion consensus.

Excluding TAC (which was a little high), sales were $81.69 billion. Analysts were looking for $80 billion there, give or take.

Sundar Pichai described “a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company.”

Search revenue and overall services sales rose 11.7% from the same period a year ago. YouTube’s contribution to the overall services total was $9.8 billon, slightly ahead of the $9.6 billion consensus.

Cloud, the key growth driver for Pichai, appeared to perform well. Sales rose 32% to $13.62 billion against $13.10 billion expected. Pichai emphasized that the annual run-rate for Cloud’s in excess of $50 billion. He cited that figure in justifying higher projected full-year capex, which is now seen at $85 billion.

The press release was chock-full of the usual AI puffery. Alphabet’s “leading at the frontier and shipping at an incredible pace.” AI’s “positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum.” And so on. You know the superlatives.

Scrolling down the ledger, operating margin was steady versus Q2 2024, net income rose nearly 20% and EPS of $2.31 was a decent beat (analysts were looking for $2.20 or so).

All in all, this was a good quarter. But it might’ve been priced in. The shares slipped during Wednesday’s regular session, but the stock rose for 10 straight days through July 22. That two-week rally — the best run in a decade and half — saw the stock pull even for 2025. The shares are obviously lagging the Mag7’s best YTD performers (Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia), but have fared much better than Apple and Tesla.

Some of Alphabet’s relatively lackluster showing this year (it’s trailing the Nasdaq 100 by 10ppt) is the antitrust overhang. Investors should get some clarity on that next month. In the meantime, Wednesday’s solid results at least suggest recent gains are justified.

Even after the rally into earnings, the stock trades at just 18x, making it a bargain versus its mega-cap peers. Again, though, the pre-earnings rally and particularly the upsized capex guide (which was a full $10 billion higher versus the previous outlook) could result in a “sell the news” trade.